Recognising sustainable agriculture as a top priority

As production system sustainability remains a hot topic across agriculture, agronomist Kirrily Condon believes one of the most important philosophies of agricultural industry initiative; the Syngenta Growth Awards is that sustainability is held equally to productivity.

Mrs Condon won the 2017 Syngenta Growth Award for Sustainability – Adviser, which was recently announced in Sydney, Australia.

The awards recognise leading agricultural growers and advisers across three categories: Productivity, Sustainability and Community & People.

From an initial pool of 51 nominations across Australia and New Zealand, 25 people were awarded regional winners and eight overall winners received a 2017 Syngenta Growth Award.

With her husband Greg Condon, Kirrily owns and runs Grassroots Agronomy in Junee, NSW where their operational focus is to increase both productivity and sustainability in agriculture.

She said the opportunity that the Growth Awards provides – to meet growers and agronomists from different commodities across Australia and New Zealand – does not come along every day.

“We as regional winners were recognised for our work in the three different categories, so it was a valuable experience to discuss issues we faced and opportunities for our own businesses and commodities,” Mrs Condon said.

“We now have a wider community of people we can turn to who have expertise across so many different aspects of agriculture.”

For Mrs Condon, the goal is always the same.

If she can provide advice to growers that makes their operation more sustainable and profitable, then she’s set out what she aimed to achieve.

We have so many means to communicate, but disseminating information and innovation that captures the attention of growers and industry always remains a challenge.
- Mrs Kirrily Condon

She produces E-booklets and newsletters and has also embraced social media platforms, in an effort to spread knowledge on important issues, such as herbicide resistance.

Grassroots Agronomy’s YouTube channel showcases short clips on crop management challenges and successes, and both Kirrily and Greg Condon regularly use Twitter to engage with the global agricultural community.

Mrs Condon said the Syngenta Growth Awards were a great way to address the challenge of information sharing.

“I’m extremely humbled to be a part of the Syngenta Growth Awards. Whilst the awards are well respected within the industry, being involved exceeded any expectations I had of what it might be like,” Mrs Condon said.